


with only the stars to steer us

by laikaspeaks



Series: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure Drabble Collection [2]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27274756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laikaspeaks/pseuds/laikaspeaks
Summary: Rapunzel retains the ability to shapeshift into a bird following the events of Freebird. A loose series of character studies fitting mostly into canon.
Relationships: Cassandra/Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Series: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure Drabble Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046908
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	1. a bird?

"I know you're there, Raps."

A small bird peered out of the underbrush. Cassandra was glad she had Owl for so long, because it gave her a little more insight than she otherwise would have had into Rapunzel's emotions. The low angle of her body, the outstretched wings promising a quickly incoming startled takeoff...

"You don't have to be so nervous. The others haven't noticed. Yet." She reached out slowly and held out the back of her hand, and couldn't quite fight back a chuckle when Rapunzel stepped up without any prompting. Apparently she was easier to handle than Owl was when she first started training him. Of course, Rapunzel was far from a wild animal even like this. Her eyes still gleamed with their bright green rather than the blank, black stare that still haunted Cassandra's nightmares. "How are you doing that anyway?"

"I don't know." Rapunzel said, fidgeting by running her beak over her shoulder in a distinctively birdlike motion. Her golden crest was flared up in a way that revealed more than even her nervous grooming. "I just... still can. I guess it's a sundrop thing now?"

"You really can't catch a break." Cassandra pulled off her other glove with her teeth, and took the opportunity to rub her knuckles against the curve of the bird's jaw. Her feathers were sleeker than Owl's, but they still fluffed charmingly under her fingers. Thankfully it seemed to have the intended effect - Rapunzel relaxed at least a little. For a moment, before she somehow vibrated more intensely, like when a hawk startled the messenger pigeons in their lofts. 

"I mean as far as upsides go this is a pretty good one." Rapunzel giggled nervously, fluttering under Cassandra's hand. 

Which was about when Cassandra realized she probably shouldn't pet her just because she was currently a bird. 


	2. her sneakiest tricks

Yeah, Cass was probably enabling a bad habit, but what of it? She might be Rapunzel's keeper but she wasn't her mother. 

"I haven't seen a princess." Cassandra said dryly, refusing to back down no matter how the guard loomed and glowered. He must be a new hire. If he thought her father was going to tolerate that kind of behavior he was going to be guarding the latrines for weeks. Captain, whatever else he was, didn't tolerate bullying behavior in his guards. "Why don't you go look for her instead of acting like I'm hiding her in my pockets?"

"You may be the princess' favorite, but that doesn't mean you can talk to me like that. I outrank you, kid." The guard's mustache bristled alarmingly with anger. 

"She's getting further away the longer you talk to me. You know that, right?"

Clearly he did, because he stomped away so hard that she could hear his armor rattling long after he went around the corner. Rapunzel peered out from under Cassandra's hair, fluffing up into a ball of irritation and letting out cranky little hisses that made Cassandra giggle despite herself. "Easy, killer."

"Remind me to give him a piece of my mind later." Rapunzel hopped and fluttered clumsily down Cassandra's shoulder before finally settling comfortably on the grip on her wrist. It was meant for Owl, but it served well enough even for a much smaller bird. "Thank you, Cass. He was starting to drive me crazy!"

"Must have been if you pulled out your sneakiest trick to get away." Cass rubbed the curve of Rapunzel's cheek and grinned a the way her green eyes slid closed. The princess was easy to read even on her best days, but in her bird form she was embarrassingly transparent. Cassandra wasn't exactly going to volunteer for a heart-to-heart, even if some part of her felt guilty for letting Rapunzel make those soft, adoring cheeps without admitting she knew what they meant. 

Honestly, did Rapunzel even want her to know? 


	3. afterward part 1

Cass held up her glove with a whistle - and Owl nearly plowed face first into her head, because the bird that got there first was very much not Owl. "Raps, what the fuck."

"Huh? Oh sorry, Cass. Habit." 

"Believe it or not, I would remember if I trained you to come running when I whistle." Wow, there really wasn't a good way to put that. "What are you even doing out here? Shouldn't you be back home doing princess things?"

"Yeah. I guess... I guess I should." 

Rapunzel really didn't sound like herself... but then Rapunzel rarely did as a bird. She was a genuine, honest person in a lot of ways, but there was something different in the bird than in the girl. Though it was hard to say if she lost or gained something in the change. 

Cass slid off her horse and sat down on a nearby log, letting out a slow breath that misted on the crisp fall air. Winter was almost upon them, and life on the road was about to get a lot harder. She wondered what made Rapunzel fly so far in a chill like this. It couldn't be easy as such a small - and frankly, tropical - bird.

They were silent for a long time, though Cass didn't feel any need to break the silence. It was nice to just sit together after so long, even if it was a little harder than it looked to pull out some apples for herself and the horse when Rapunzel was so reluctant to take off from Cassandra's glove like she normally would. 

Though it was very amusing to see her clinging awkwardly to Cassandra's wrist when she was trying to undo the buckle to the saddlebags.

"Penny for your thoughts, Raps?"

"Not yet." Rapunzel finally surrendered Cassandra's glove and fluttered up to her shoulder, fidgeting so seriously that it made Cassandra's hair frizz up with shared static. 

"What?"

"Ask me again tomorrow, Cass."

"Uhhh, okay? Are you at least going to turn back into yourself?"

"No."

Well. Okay then. "Well, okay then."

She could practically feel the smile of relief against her ear. "Thank you, Cass."


	4. afterward part 2

Cassandra managed to hold out for a full three days.

"Why are you here, Raps?" She hated asking the question - on some level she really, really didn't want to know. But somehow she felt like if she didn't Rapunzel would never actually tell her what was on her mind, and despite the history between them, she cared about Rapunzel too much to let her stay a bird forever. "What are you doing hiding out here instead of going home?"

Rapunzel, for her part, stumbled out of her sleepy-ball-of-fluff mode and down Cassandra's arm, only just flapping her way back up onto the saddle before she fell to the ground.

"I'm not hiding!" Rapunzel snapped, her wings snapping open in what Cassandra instantly recognized as the bird version of her Game Face. "Why would you even think that?"

"Because you're acting like this over me even asking, Raps." She sat back in the saddle, which signaled the horse to stop, and in the same motion scooped Rapunzel up from her knee. Gathering the bird up against her cheek wasn't really something she would do with a real actual bird, but Rapunzel wasn't one no matter how she seemed to want to pretend to be sometimes. "What's up with you? You've been really weird. And you've been a bird this whole time which is super weird."

Rapunzel gasped painfully, and between one breath and the next knocked Cassandra right off of her horse. Ow, ow, ow. Cassandra wheezed under the sudden weight on her chest, but wrapped her arms around Rapunzel's waist anyway, because there was no world in which she was going to let go after this long apart.

"I miss it. I miss all of this." Rapunzel muffled her voice in Cassandra's shoulder, but it did absolutely nothing to hide the way her shoulders hitched with a sob. "Why can't I be happy? I thought I could do it this time but I just - I miss this and I miss you, and I have a trip planned for next year but when I think about all the time in between I just can't breathe and -"

Cassandra really wished she didn't recognize the way Rapunzel's breathing started to rattle, sharp and shallow and trapped. She didn't remember the princess doing this in front of her before, but that didn't mean Cassandra didn't know the feeling.

"Easy, easy. Breathe, Rapunzel. Nice an easy, in and out. Just like that." She squeezed Rapunzel close, which would never in a million years work with Cass but seemed to make Rapunzel's breathing steady that much more. "There we go, you're okay."

Cassandra swallowed, ignoring the horse trying to shove her concerned face against her cheek and the mud leeching in through her cloak and how wrong it was for her to suggest what she was about to suggest. "Just come with me, Raps. You don't have to stay if you don't want..."

"It's the right thing to do. I owe it to everyone to do my best." Rapunzel didn't sound like herself again. As though she was closing the door and turning the key on some vibrant part of herself. The part of her that she gained, or perhaps lost, as a bird. "Sometimes I just wish... I could be anyone else. Anything else."

Cassandra wished she had an answer for that.


	5. risking hypothermia for love?

"You're starting to look a little too comfortable, Raps." 

Rapunzel burrowed deeper into the fur ruff of Cassandra's cloak, not even bothering to defend herself from the accusation. She was very comfortable, even if it was six kinds of silly for her to be in her bird form when it was this cold. Whatever kind of bird she was it wasn't designed for this weather, and any chill at all made her feel faint and sick.

However. She couldn't resist the special privileges that came with this form. Cassandra, who was normally so reserved when it came to physical affection, barely seemed to register that she and the bird were the same person. Which meant that Rapunzel could sneak further into Cassandra's cloak and tuck up under the curve of her jaw. And instead of Cass withdrawing with that familiar scowl, all she got in response was a throaty chuckle that never failed to make her heart stutter in her chest. 

She was so, so doomed. 


	6. dude

This was probably morally wrong somehow. Cassandra would probably be able to point out at least a dozen ways Rapunzel was pulling some awful trick. Being selfish. But she couldn't bring herself to stop, couldn't bring herself to even try to figure out the right thing to do. And all because -

Cassandra's knuckles rubbed against Rapunzel's cheek. All her expressions were beautiful - every one of them made Rapunzel itch for a pen, for paint, for some way to take each fleeting glance and hold onto it. This, though? It was her favorite. Unusually soft and unguarded, warmer than she could remember Cassandra being for anyone ever. 

She felt it bubble up in her chest, traitorous as her own heart, but she didn't resist. She trilled and chirped and sang like a bird under Cassandra's affection, thankful that birds couldn't blush. It was bad enough to feel such burning embarrassment without anyone actually being able to see it. 

There were more than a few reasons she loved being a bird. The most pathetic of them being that it was the only time Cassandra loved her back.


	7. rapunzel better not take owl's job

Cassandra loved the advantage of high ground. What she didn't love was needing it, and the handful of bandits milling about on the road below meant she would need every advantage she could get. Honestly she would rather just sneak around, but that would be difficult on such rough terrain even without Fidella in tow.

"There are some more on the ridge." 

Cassandra jumped with a yelp she muffled into her hand, and shot the little bird on her shoulder an accusing look. "Raps I swear to - don't do that."

"Sorry." She didn't sound all that sorry. "There are eight, I think? It was hard to tell, they were moving around too much."

Cass let out a slow exhale. "That sounds like too much for me, even if I force them to come at me through that gulch down there. Are you planning on chipping in, princess?"

That literally ruffled Rapunzel's feathers. She fluffed up into an almost shapeless ball of irritation. "Don't call me that. And of course I am."

"Your pan is on Fidella's saddle." 

"I know." Rapunzel ran her beak through Cassandra's hair a few times, as close to a kiss as she could get in this form. "You can start circling around to the other side. Don't draw their attention until I get back, okay?"

"Yes, princess." 

Cass snickered at Rapunzel shoving a clawed foot against Cassandra's cheek as she took off - too careful not to scratch her for true anger. Somehow what used to be a heavy weight on their friendship had become a joke, and then a playful little nickname. Things between them were still uncertain. But for the first time in a long time it felt like they might be okay. 


End file.
